Claim Copilot Student

Copilot is a paid product for most developers: $10 per month for Copilot Pro, $39 for Pro+. As a verified student, though, you get it free through GitHub Education as a tier called Copilot Student. That is what we will use throughout this chapter. Before we install anything, let’s claim it.

What You Get with Copilot Student

The Student tier includes:

  • Unlimited inline completions — the ghost text that appears as you type
  • 300 premium requests per month — this covers Chat, edit mode, and agent mode against premium models like Claude Sonnet and GPT-5
  • Access to the premium model picker in Chat
  • Agent mode and MCP support, both included

For this chapter, 300 premium requests is plenty. For contrast, Copilot Free (what you get on any GitHub account by default) caps premium requests at 50 per month and does not include agent mode at all. So the verification is worth doing.

Apply Through GitHub Education

Copilot Student is granted through the GitHub Student Developer Pack, a collection of free developer tools offered by GitHub Education. Copilot is one benefit in the Pack, and there are many others you can look at later.

Go to github.com/settings/education/benefits while signed in to your personal GitHub account and click Start an application. You will be asked for:

  1. Your school — pick it from the dropdown, or type it in if it is not listed
  2. Your academic status — enrolled in a degree or diploma program, age 13 or older
  3. Proof of enrollment — either a verified school email that GitHub already recognizes, or a photo of a document (see below)

Submit the application and wait. Verification typically takes anywhere from a few hours to a few days. GitHub does not publish a guaranteed turnaround, so do not leave this to the last minute.

What Counts as Proof

If your school email address is already registered with GitHub Education, that alone is usually enough. Otherwise, you will need to upload a photo of an official document showing your name, your school’s name, and a current enrollment date. Any of these work:

  • A student ID with a current enrollment sticker or term printed on it
  • A class schedule printout for the current term
  • An enrollment verification letter from the registrar
  • A transcript (unofficial is fine) showing current enrollment

Eligibility Is Rechecked

GitHub’s current documentation says it reevaluates student eligibility every month. If your eligibility changes or your student verification lapses, your account can drop back to the Free tier.

While You Wait

You do not need to wait for approval before continuing through the next few sections. If you already have a GitHub account, you can install and use Copilot on the Free tier right away, and when your Student approval comes through your account will upgrade automatically.

Next, we will change a few account-level settings on github.com, specifically what Copilot is allowed to suggest and what it sends back.